10 Things Will Help

As the daughter of an environmental scientist, I grew up a little differently. When the world first began to care about Climate Change and the damage that was being done to our planet, when everyone got excited about Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, and when conscious consumerism first entered popular usage, I was confused. Was this not common knowledge?

The first time I realized that my upbringing had not been the same as others, was when we moved to New York. Up until that point we had mostly lived on the family farm in the then small town of Kiama. We composted all our food scraps in the worm farm and washed all our plastics and recycled them so that nothing unnecessarily went to landfill. We took our fabric bags to the grocery store and dad taught us how to choose items that had less packaging. We often shopped in second-hand stores, not just because it lessened our carbon footprint but also because it was fun. When we went to the beach for a surf or a swim we competed to see who could pick up the most pieces of trash, the winner got to pick what we had for lunch.

When we arrived in America there was only one bin for everything, and most of my classmates didn’t know what composting was. When we went to the store we were told we couldn’t use our fabric bags for hygiene reasons, so we choose paper over plastic. And when I proudly picked litter off the playground a teacher explained to me that it wasn’t my job and it was one of the reasons the other kids thought I was weird. Already having trouble fitting it I stopped asking about recycling bins and started shopping at the mall because apparently, only poor people shopped second hand.

If I had been older than my eight years of age, if it was today, not twenty years ago, I don’t think I would have been so quick to abandon what I had been taught in order to fit in. But I was eight, and it was the year 2000, it would be six more years until Al Gore climbed in a cherry picker to rise up alongside his graph and show us how much carbon dioxide we were putting into the world and it would be eighteen years until Greta Thunberg would sit outside parliament in her yellow raincoat and demand the world makes a change.

I’ve watched the world as it caught up to the knowledge that I thought was common and during that time I've noticed that while nearly everyone is happy to do whatever they're told will help, most people don't really understand how what they're doing fits within the larger scope of systematic change. So in honor of my eight-year-old self that was too embarrassed to stand up to her teacher and peers, I humbly submit my 10 Things That Will Help you understand why what we as individuals do matters!

1. Don't buy it, if you don't need it.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." – Albert Einstein

We can't shop our way out of this problem because it is the shopping that created the problem. Conscious consumerism is an important concept and we’ll get to the why of that next. But it’s very important to understand that it doesn’t solve the problem in the way most people think it does. Even when you take the time to make sure that your item is sustainably sourced, you are still consuming a product.

Before we recycle and reuse the first step in the three R’s is to reduce. And reduction is number one for a reason. It’s the most important. Reducing the amount you are consuming is the best way to lower your carbon footprint. If you’re buying an item that’s only ten out of a hundred on the consumption scale it’s still not as good as the zero you would earn if you didn’t buy anything at all.

The four questions I was taught to ask are: If you did not buy this item today would it negatively impact your life? If you did buy this item today how long would you use it for? Could you buy this item second-hand, borrow it, or lend it to others if you did buy it? Do you already own a similar item you could use instead?

You can apply these questions however you want or not at all. But the important thing is not to consume products for the sake of having them. Only buy things that you need. But that doesn’t mean we are all going to live in decoration-free, product-less houses. Sometimes you do ‘need’ an item from the perspective of the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and that’s okay, as long as you’ve taken the time to think about it.

2. It’s still important to consume consciously…

‘The customer is always right.’ – Every sales manager ever

In this age, lots of brands advertise their environmental sustainability, but the keyword there is 'advertise'. They know that this is now a concern of their customers and so, therefore, they use it in the way they sell themselves to you. And this is why it’s important to consciously consume.

Let’s be honest, in the scheme of everything happening in the world, that one time you didn’t use a plastic straw isn’t going to make a huge difference. It is true that when you make that choice a hundred times along with a hundred other people it begins to make an impact. But that is not why conscious consumerism is important.

It is important because it puts pressure on the corporations of the world, who are the biggest contributors to our environmental distress, to make changes or lose their customers. In the same way, a restaurant that serves bad food doesn’t stay in business for long, if you don’t buy items that are wasteful, the seller must either change their product or go out of business.

And we can see this happening with many of the ‘Millenial’s are ruining’ articles out there. So far apparently we’ve destroyed the napkin industry, the diamond industry, cruises, and golf. Which despite the media’s lazy narrative is actually a great thing. All of these things have questionable environmental (and social) practices behind them. So vote with your money and stop using things that are wasteful.

3. Time matters…

‘Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.’ - Theophrastus

Fast fashion has long been called out as one of the worst environmental offenders and people have begun choosing items that are better made and designed to last longer, but what happens when an item is designed to last ten years but you only use it for two? The answer often is that you’ve actually made a bigger carbon footprint than if you’d simply bought the cheap item designed to only last a year.

Another example is the reusable coffee cup. If you buy a new one every year, particularly if it’s plastic, your carbon footprint can actually end up being bigger than if you’d just used the paper take away ones. And again we see this problem in the wave of new electric cars, whose manufacturing carbon footprint means you’ll have to have owned it for ten years before it’s making a difference.

This concept can be hard to wrap your head around but an easy way to understand it is if you think about it like making dinner. If you’re making dinner for one, you need only a handful of ingredients, it doesn’t take a lot of time, and there’s not a lot of clean-up to do. If you’re making dinner for twelve, you need a lot more food, it takes more time and there’s more clean up. Now substitute your ingredients for the substance of your product, the time for energy used, and clean up for the amount of waste involved in making the product. If you made that dinner for twelve people but no one showed up so you just ate one person's worth and threw the rest away, that has a lot more waste. This is the same as when a product is designed to last twelve years but you only use it for one.

This doesn’t mean that you should stop using items designed to last longer. It just means that you need to be aware of the life cycle of a product and try and use what you have for as long as possible even if you change the way it’s used. That ding in the side of your water bottle doesn’t stop it from working, but maybe it becomes the backup bottle in your car rather than the one you take to meetings. Those scuffed shoes might no longer be appropriate for work but they’d be great for gardening.

Alternatively, if you are done with an item, clean it up, make it as nice as you can, and then donate it to a second-hand store or gift it to someone else in need so that the item can have a second life and perhaps reach a level of use that matches its life cycle. This brings us to the next important thing to remember.

4. Sharing is caring… about the environment.

“It ain't no fun if the homies can't have none. ” -Snoop Dogg

When I moved into my first place after my parent’s house I realized there was a long list of things I would need for the upkeep, namely a vacuum cleaner. My first thought was to do a little research and find one that was affordable but well made and would last me for a few years at least. But then I met my lovely neighbor in the apartment next door, Mark. He already owned a vacuum cleaner, and as this is not an item that’s in use consistently I asked him if from time to time I could borrow his vacuum, and he said of course.

When we have items in collective usage we can limit the number of that item that is made. And same as we consider the life cycle of an item versus its carbon footprint the extension of that is that we need to consider the regularity of use versus its environmental impact. If you only use an item half a dozen times and the rest of the time it’s sitting in the garage for ten years gathering dust until it disintegrates from lack of usage, that is the same as only using an item for a year and it's an environmental waste.

So if you thought you’d take up a hobby and got yourself all of the necessary paraphernalia only to find yourself not as interested in it as you thought you’d be, it’s better to acknowledge that and re-home the item by either donating it or reselling it while it’s still in a good condition and usable. Or just let friends, family, and the neighbor kids know that they are also welcome to use that item as well.

The same goes for clothes, furniture, electronics, and so on. You’re far better off donating early when the item still has some good life left in it. Items donated to second-hand stores that are beyond use or damaged are a separate epidemic and end up costing those charity stores dearly as they now need to pay for proper disposal.

5. Make do and mend…

“We live in a disposable society. It's easier to throw things out than to fix them.” -Neil LaBute

The flip side of donating early while an item is still usable is making sure that your item really isn’t usable anymore. This isn’t just about up-cycling your old clothes into something more fashionable, it’s also about repairing what you can.

To me, the twelve-dollar toaster my friend bought in university is a perfect example. This was not an item designed to have a long life, which as we know is a separate problem. But when one day he pushed the button down and the bread didn’t get toasted, he removed his food, picked the whole thing up, and threw it in the bin while declaring ‘I’ll go buy another one tomorrow’.

I’ve often heard the argument that an item isn’t worth fixing because replacing it new would cost the same amount. But this is only true when you consider the cost to you rather than the cost to the world at large. That new item that has to be made is more resources in consumables, energy, and waste, plus the item you owned is now in landfill.

As it transpired, a different friend helped me reconnect a loose wire inside the toaster, and last year after a decade of use and two more repair jobs I had to finally concede it was beyond repair and dispose of it. But that’s ten more years of use from the same initial item rather than ten toasters in ten years.

6. Not all trash is created equally…

“If you want grown-ups to recycle, just tell their kids the importance of recycling, and they'll be all over it.” - Bill Nye

Recycling is great but education about recycling is essential. There are a lot of things that can be recycled but aren’t just because people don’t know that you can. And equally there are a lot of times people think something can be recycled and thus it’s fine to use it. But that’s not always true.

Yes, plastic can be recycled. That’s why we have the funny little numbers on our plastic items. But it cannot be infinitely recycled. It still has a shelf life or a certain number of times it can go through the process before it has to be thrown away. Aluminum cans, on the other hand, can be melted down forever and turned back into new products with very little waste of substance and lesser energy used in the recycling process.

We need to take into consideration not just the volume of the garbage we create but also the quality. This is why single-use plastics are such a problem and often attacked by green enthusiasts. It’s not just the fact that it is plastic it’s also the fact that it’s ‘one use’ and that’s one of the times it can go through the recycling process, gone.

My reading glasses are plastic, but I’ve owned them for eight years, and they’re designed so that I can replace the lenses as many times as I want, so I could own them for my entire life. That is a good use of plastic, not just because they’re already recycled, specifically from melted down broken children’s toys, but also because the long-lasting nature of plastic is being used to make an item that I can use for a long time.

A toothbrush, on the other hand, is not a good use of plastic, particularly if you’re following the advice of dentists and replacing your toothbrush every month. But even if you’re not, a toothbrush is a temporary item so making it out of plastic isn’t a good idea. But before you run out and buy a bamboo toothbrush there’s something else to consider.

7. Shop local!

“You can spend your whole life traveling around the world searching for the Garden of Eden, or you can create it in your backyard.” ― Khang Kijarro Nguyen

Where I live in Australia I can buy a can of sliced peaches or a can of diced peaches by the same brand and one is made in Australia and the other overseas. They cost me the same amount of money. But the cost to the environment is significantly different. One has been truck-driven from out of state, not great but not bad. The other has been shipped overseas on a massive freighter, and that is a big footprint for a can of peaches.

Shopping local isn’t just about stimulating your local economy although that is a great idea. It’s also about the carbon costs of transport. Yes, bamboo grows faster and uses less water than cotton or trees so, in theory, it’s a better product from which to make everything from clothing to flooring but where in the world is that bamboo coming from? Maybe you are technically shopping locally when you buy that cute printed pillowcase from that local artist, but where did they get those pillowcases made?

Unfortunately due to the massive demand for more for less, a lot of companies have moved to manufacture overseas where the workers are paid less and they have fewer overheads because it’s cheaper to make that product over there and ship it to wherever they are financial, but the footprint is much worse because you take the consumables, energy use and waste generated and add to it, transportation costs.

This question can make things a little tricky because when you start factoring in transportation carbon costs, ‘sustainable items’ that seemed like no-brainers are suddenly the worst offenders. So bear in mind where your item is coming from? Whether it’s your DVD player, your clothes, or your avocados. There is no worse offender than our desire to have access to all fruits and vegetables all year round, even though they are mostly seasonal, which means your banana has traveled further than you in the last week.

8. Technology isn’t the only answer… but it is a good one… mostly…

“The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we scientists don't know how to do that." – Gus Speth

Bring on the solar panels made from recycled glass that can replace roads or even windows. Let’s drive electric cars fueled by sunlight. Let’s never use disposable batteries again!

These technological solutions are awesome but there are two things we need to remember. Firstly it’s not perfect and we have systemic problems we need to overcome to make it work. And secondly, it’s not the only solution.

Whenever there is even the smallest blip in any ‘green technology’ we hear about it. Sometimes they aren’t even actual problems but potential problems, under extreme circumstances, that has never happened, but could. This is a part of the systemic problem in which certain industries still have the ear of the government and the media outlets. And we need to be careful that these small problems don’t stop us from adopting what could be revolutionary technologies.

Equally, it's important to note that we do still have more work to do and we don’t have the entire infrastructure in place yet. Those moving over to electric cars are often charging those cars on coal-fuelled electricity, thus making little to no difference over petrol cars. And if that person has replaced a perfectly good working car with an electric one, thus not having owned the previous car long enough to offset the carbon footprint of the manufacturing process, they’ve actually taken a step backward.

This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t move over to electric cars but just that we need to be aware that doing so isn’t yet the magical fix we are hoping for. We need to keep working on creating the infrastructure around it so that it is.

And in the meantime… when is the last time you planted a tree? Buying fewer products, replacing your lawn with a garden, and planting more native plants are all great things we can do now that have little to no negative impact. As they say 'think global, act local, why not start in your own backyard. You don't have to wait for the technology to be ready or the government to change its policy you can start yourself now.

9. The items don’t have to be perfect…

“Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.” - Salvador Dali

Shopping responsibly doesn’t just mean looking at the item itself but also the way in which it is packaged. Nothing has made me laugh more than seeing a banana wrapped in plastic. It already has it’s own natural case, why are we wrapping it again? And why are cookies both in a box and a plastic sleeve? Why do DVD cases have an inch of plastic on either side of the disk?

Lots of people will say that these things are for the safety of the item inside but in actual fact, it’s mostly to do with presentation and the fact that companies know we like things to look a certain way. DVD cases were designed that way to make them look more substantial as they were replacing the bigger VHS. Cookies are first in plastic and then a box, or have a plastic tray to prevent them from getting damaged so that they look like they do in the advertisements.

This is the same reason that literal tons of fruits and vegetables never make it to your store. They don’t look ‘right’. The banana isn’t curved enough, that apple has a spot, that orange is often treated to make sure its skin has turned the exact right shade, that strawberry is too small and this one is too big and so on. And since were in an age where we are realizing that all bodies are beautiful and they don’t have to look like what advertisements have told us in the past, let’s do it for food too.

When we put our attention on the product not the packaging, or more specifically on the product and tell them we don’t want the packaging, companies have to change their ways. We’re already seeing it with stores stocking ‘crazy vegetables’ aka vegetable that would have been thrown out because they’re not the perfect shape and size.

10. We don’t have to be perfect…

“Progress is more important than perfection.” – Simon Sinek

I have thrown a lot of information at you, on top of a lot of information you already have. And it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. It’s easy to feel like the things you are doing aren’t enough in the face of such a large and multifaceted problem. I’ve been there. But you know what, every attempt is a step in the right direction.

You don’t have to be perfect. So you bought a bamboo toothbrush, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was imported from China making it’s carbon footprint bigger than you thought. Who cares, you tried!

You bought an electric car not factoring in the manufacturing footprint or the fact that the only charging port you have access to is coal-powered electricity. Who cares, you tried!

You’ve been buying a new keep cup every year to proudly show that you are giving a shit about the environment. Great! It puts social pressure on others to make the same change, now just hang on to it for a bit longer.

As long as we keep doing our best to make good choices, that’s what really matters. Caring about the environment, keeping it in your mind when you make choices, it will make a difference.

And even if you only pick up one wrapper off the beach, that’s still one less piece of trash in our oceans.